Voices and influences
Albert Barnes
The Philadelphia pastor who rose at four every morning to write Bible notes for his own Sunday school, and sold a million volumes of them.
Summary
This site quotes Albert Barnes 8,265 times across 66 books, and lists 0 works.
- Lived 1798 to 1870.
- Quoted here most in Isaiah: 746 of 8,265.
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Albert Barnes
- Lived
- 1798 to 1870
- Tradition
- Presbyterian
5 of 8,265 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Albert Barnes died in 1870 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts - Interpreters have differed in regard to the connection of this verse with the preceding.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
The rest of the quotation
It is evident, I think, that it is properly connected with the subject of pardon; and the sense must be, that the plans and purposes of God in regard to forgiveness are as far above those of people as the heavens are higher than the earth, Isa 55:
Isaiah 55:8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. BSB
He hath shewed thee - Micah does not tell them now, as for the first time; which would have excused them. He says, “He hath shewed thee;” He, about whose mind and will and pleasure they were pretending to enquire, the Lord their God.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
The rest of the quotation
He had shewn it to them. The law was full of it. He shewed it to them, when He said, “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him and to serve the Lord, thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command thee this day for thy good?” Deu 10:12-13. They had asked, “with what outward thing shall I come before the Lord;” the prophet tells them, “what thing is good,” the inward man of the heart, righteousness, love, humility. And what doth the Lord require (search, seek) of thee? - The very word implies an earnest search within. He would say (Rup.), “Trouble not thyself as to any of these things, burnt-offerings, rams, calves, without thee. For God seeketh not thine, but thee; not thy substance, but thy spirit; not ram or goat, but thy heart.” : “Thou askest, what thou shouldest offer for thee? Other thyself. For what else doth the Lord seek of thee, but thee? Because, of all earthly creatures, He hath made nothing better than thee, He seeketh thyself from thyself, because thou hadst lost thyself.” To do judgment - are chiefly all acts of equity; “to love mercy,” all deeds of love. Judgment, is what right requires; mercy, what love. Yet, secondarily, “to do judgment” is to pass righteous judgments in all cases; and so, as to others, “judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” Joh 7:24; and as to one’s self also. Judge equitably and kindly of others, humbly of thyself. […]
Micah 6:8 He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? BSB
(Compare Exo. 39:1-31.) Moses is now commanded to commit all that pertains to the offerings made to the Lord in the sanctuary to the exclusive charge of the members of a single family, who were to hold their office from generation to generation.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
The rest of the quotation
In the patriarchal times, the external rites of worship had generally been conducted by the head of the tribe or family, in accordance with the principle involved in the dedication of the firstborn Exo 13:2; Num 3:12-
Exodus 28:1 “Next, have your brother Aaron brought to you from among the Israelites, along with his sons Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar, to serve Me as priests. BSB
The leper was to carry about with him the usual signs of mourning for the dead. Compare Lev 10:6 and margin reference.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
The rest of the quotation
The leper was a living parable in the world of the sin of which death was the wages; not the less so because his suffering might have been in no degree due to his own personal deserts: he bore about with him at once the deadly fruit and the symbol of the sin of his race. Exo 20:
Leviticus 13:45 A diseased person must wear torn clothes and let his hair hang loose, and he must cover his mouth and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean!’ BSB
Chambers - (Margin, floors). Rather, a lean-to, which completely surrounded three sides of the building, the north, the west, and the south.
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Undated in the archive this site cites.
1 Kings 6:5 Against the walls of the temple and the inner sanctuary, Solomon built a chambered structure around the temple, in which he constructed the side rooms. BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Albert Barnes 8,265 times across 66 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
Albert Barnes was born at Rome, New York, on December 1, 1798. He was headed for the law. At Hamilton College he was converted, changed direction, and went to Princeton Theological Seminary instead, graduating in 1824. His first pastorate was Morristown, New Jersey, from 1825 to 1830. In 1830 he was called to the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, where he preached until 1867 — thirty-seven years in one pulpit. The habit that made him famous was the alarm clock. Barnes rose at four every morning and wrote until nine, before the day's pastoral work began. What he wrote were notes on the Bible for his own Sunday school teachers and Bible class — plain explanations, verse by verse, aimed at people with no Greek and no library. He published them, beginning with the Gospels in 1832. They did not stop. Notes, Explanatory and Practical eventually covered the whole New Testament and much of the Old — Job, the Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel — and sold more than a million volumes in his lifetime, an astonishing number for the period. Generations of American laymen learned their Bible out of Barnes. He was also tried for heresy. His 1829 sermon The Way of Salvation, and then his notes on Romans in 1835, were charged with departing from the Westminster Confession on original sin and the atonement; Barnes taught that Christ's death was a provision made for all rather than a payment restricted in advance to the elect. The Presbytery of Philadelphia suspended him from the ministry in 1835, and the General Assembly reversed the suspension in 1836. He was acquitted, but the fight was one of the fuses of the Old School–New School division that split the American Presbyterian church in 1837. Barnes stood on the New School side. He fought slavery hard and early. An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery (1846) took up the biblical arguments the Southern churches used and dismantled them one at a time; The Church and Slavery followed in 1857. The books were read widely in the North during the years the country came apart. His eyesight failed badly in later life, and he kept working with help. He resigned the pulpit in 1867 and died in Philadelphia on December 24, 1870, at seventy-two. What he left is unusual for a scholar. Not a monument — a tool. A working pastor's commentary, written before breakfast for people who had no one else to explain the text, still in print and still free more than a century and a half later. Sources: Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the New Testament and An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery; the published minutes of the Presbyterian General Assembly, 1835–1837; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church; George Marsden, The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.
8,265 quotations across 66 books
Where this voice is quoted
And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
“This then is the message which we have heard of him - This is the substance of the announcement (ἐπαγγελία epangelia) which we have received of him, or which he made to us.”
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all…
“But if we walk in the light - Compare the notes at 1Jn 1:5. Walking in the light may include the three following things: (1) Leading lives of holiness and purity; that is, the Christian must be characteristically a holy man, a light in the…”
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
“If we confess our sins - Pardon in the Scriptures, always supposes that there is confession, and there is no promise that it will be imparted unless a full acknowledgment has been made. Compare Ps.”
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you will not sin.
“My little children - Τεκνια μοῦ Teknia mou. This is such language as an aged apostle would be likely to use when addressing a church, and its use in this Epistle may be regarded as one evidence that John had reached an advanced period of…”
By this we can be sure that we have come to know Him: if we keep His commandments.
“And hereby we do know that we know him - To wit, by that which follows, we have evidence that we are truly acquainted with him, and with the requirements of his religion; that is, that we are truly his friends.”
But if anyone keeps His word, the love of God has been truly perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him:
“But whoso keepeth his word - That is, what he has spoken or commanded, The term “word” here will include all that he has made known to us as his will in regard to our conduct.”
Beloved, I am not writing to you a new commandment, but an old one, which you have had from the beginning. This commandment is the message you have heard.
“Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you - That is, what I am now enjoining is not new. It is the same doctrine which you have always heard.”
If anyone claims to be in the light but hates his brother, he is still in the darkness.
“He that saith he is in the light - That he has true religion, or is a Christian. See 1Jn 1:7. And hateth his brother - The word “brother” seems here to refer to those who professed the same religion.”
But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness. He does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
“But he that hateth his brother - The word here used would, in this connection, include both the mere absence of love, and positive hatred. It is designed to include the whole of that state of mind where there is not love for the brethren.”
I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.
“I write unto you, fathers - As there were special reasons for writing to children, so there were also for writing to those who were more mature in life.”
The world is passing away, along with its desires; but whoever does the will of God remains forever.
“And the world passeth away - Everything properly constituting this world where religion is excluded. The reference here does not seem to be so much to the material world, as to the scenes of show and vanity which make up the world.”
They went out from us, but they did not belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us.
“They went out from us - From the church. That is, they had once been professors of the religion of the Saviour, though their apostasy showed that they never had any true piety.”
I have not written to you because you lack knowledge of the truth, but because you have it, and because no lie comes from the truth.
“I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth - You are not to regard my writing to you in this earnest manner as any evidence that I do not suppose you to be acquainted with religion and its duties.”
Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.
“Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father - That is, has no just views of the Father, and has no evidence of his friendship.”
And this is the promise that He Himself made to us: eternal life.
“And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life - This is evidently added to encourage them in adhering to the truths which they had embraced respecting the Son of God.”
And as for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you.
“But the anointing which ye have received of him - See the notes at 1Jn 2:20. Abideth in you - The meaning is, that the influence on your heart and life, which results from the fact that you are anointed of God, permanently abides with…”
If you know that He is righteous, you also know that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him.
“If ye know that he is righteous - This is not said as if there could be any doubt on the subject, but merely to call their attention to it as a well-known truth, and to state what followed from it.”
Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are!
“Behold, what manner of love - What love, in “kind” and in “degree.” In kind the most tender and the most ennobling, in adopting us into His family, and in permitting us to address Him as our Father; in “degree” the most exalted, since there…”
And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.
“And every man that hath this hope in him - This hope of seeing the Saviour, and of being made like him; that is, every true Christian. On the nature and influence of hope, see the notes at Rom 8:24-25.”
But you know that Christ appeared to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin.
“And ye know that he was manifested - The Lord Jesus, the Son of God. “You know that he became incarnate, or appeared among people, for the very purpose of putting an end to sin,” Mat 1:21. Compare the notes at 1Ti 3:16.”
Little children, let no one deceive you: The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Christ is righteous.
“Little children - Notes at 1Jn 2:1. Let no man deceive you - That is, in the matter under consideration; to wit, by persuading you that a man may live in sinful practices, and yet be a true child of God.”
Anyone born of God refuses to practice sin, because God’s seed abides in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.
“Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin - This passage must either mean that they who are born of God, that is, who are true Christians, do not sin habitually and characteristically, or that everyone who is a true Christian is absolutely perfect…”
This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
“For this is the message - Margin, “commandment.” In the received text, this is ἀγγελία angelia - “a message brought;” in several manuscripts, and in later editions, it is ἐπαγγελία epangelia - “annunciation, announcement;” an order given, or a commandment, Act 23:21.”
So do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you.
“Marvel not - Do not think it so unusual, or so little to be expected, as to excite astonishment. If the world hate you - The emphasis here is to be placed on the word “you.””
Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that eternal life does not reside in a murderer.
“Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer ... - That is, he has the spirit of a murderer; he has that which, if it were acted out, would lead him to commit murder, as it did Cain.”